Griz consider Eastern just another game

MISSOULA – Not to puncture any presumptions, but the checklist on the tunnel wall outside the football locker room here pretty much tells it all.

Under “program goals,” in order, are:

“ Get a University of Montana degree.

“ Beat Montana State.

“ Win the Big Sky Conference championship.

“ Win the national championship.

Nothing specific to Eastern Washington University there. You could try to make the case that it’s implied, or something to be read between the lines – the Big Sky championship reference – but the fact is the letters E, W and U aren’t to be found in that order on that poster. Not this week, not any week.

Just the way it has to be.

“Eastern Washington always has a great team and they’re tough to play against,” said Montana guard Jason Frink, who has witnessed four games against the Eagles up close. “They have so many good players and this game always has a lot of meaning in deciding the championship.

“But we have to look at them as just another team in the Big Sky.”

Well, at least Eastern has that much in common with the Grizzlies this week.

October’s biggest game in the Big Sky – EWU at Montana on Saturday in front of the obligatory 23,000-plus sellout at Washington-Grizzly Stadium – is just another one the Eagles have to win. Having lost their league opener to Idaho State, the Eagles can’t afford to stumble again – against Montana or anybody else – and still be relevant in the championship tale they were supposed to author.

As hype goes, that’s more desperation sexy than clash-of-the-titans sexy, but there you have it.

It falls somewhere between bemusement and irony that in this, the season in which six Big Sky coaches anointed Eastern the favorite, the Eagles are back in their old costumes as ambitious – and cranky – underdogs. These are opportunities that shouldn’t be wasted. The last time Montana wasn’t assumed to be a lock may pre-date the introduction of Birkenstocks and Moose Drool into the Missoula culture.

Eastern has become – and the record confirms – Big Sky football’s next-best thing. But if the gap has narrowed for any given meeting between the two – aside from two wins over Montana, the Eagles have lost by four points or less four times the past decade – it’s still considerable in the big picture. During that same stretch, Montana has won 45 more games.

But you can understand a certain preoccupation with the Grizzlies in the Eastern consciousness.

They are the closest geographical dance partner the Eagles have.

They are – the blown budget a couple years back notwithstanding – a model to envy in terms of accomplishment and fan following.

And they have the habit of smuggling a few gems out of EWU’s backyard.

This is not a new development, nor are the players always all-conference types – though there have been some. A few years back, kicker Chris Snyder (Mt. Spokane) and defensive linemen Blake Horgan (East Valley) and Jonny Varona (Medical Lake) were all so honored. Two more will start Saturday – Frink, who played his high school ball at Post Falls, and Lewis and Clark’s Kevin Edwards, who has played in 47 straight games as a defensive back. Another, Lake City’s Matt Troxel, is seeing regular time at receiver.

This has not sent EWU coach Paul Wulff rushing out for Digitalis because, well, it’s not exactly as if the Eagles are without a local profile, is it?

“It’s a lot different now than it was,” he pointed out. “Kids leave from here and go all over the place, not just Montana. I do believe we’re at a point now where we’re getting a lot of those kids and you’re seeing our program improve dramatically.”

But it’s also true that the Grizzlies still “treat Spokane and the Coeur d’Alene area as if it’s an in-state area,” said UM coach Bobby Hauck. “The fact is, it’s much closer than a good deal of Montana is to us. It’s twice as close as Billings, which is the biggest city in our state, so it just makes sense.”

It doesn’t always make sense to the tunnel-visioned fan who can’t grasp the concept of the one-that-got-away. Kids happen. Recruiting isn’t The Truman Show.

“Some of the kids were kids we really wanted,” Wulff explained, “and some weren’t necessarily kids we highly recruited at the time and they developed. That happens, too. You don’t necessarily have a scholarship at that time at that position and therefore they go where the scholarship offer is.”

In the case of Frink and Edwards, they each had just two Division I-AA football offers – EWU and Montana. Frink said he was leaning toward Eastern until he took his visit to Missoula and got a taste of the rings and trophies and mania that attend the program. Edwards characterized himself more as a teenager with itchy feet who “wanted to see what else was out there” beyond the county line.

Which hasn’t lessened his regard for what remains back there.

“I played with some of those guys at all-state games and in the GSL,” he said, “and I know a couple of their coaches and they have a good thing going over there. All those guys get pretty riled up to play us. And they’ve gotten pretty consistent with the winning tradition, so it’s always a big game.”

Yes, it has. Three times in the last eight years it’s determined the Big Sky champion, including last year.

So it’s an important date for the Grizzlies, too. But then, they all are.

“I wish I had a dollar for every time somebody called us their rival,” said Hauck, who knows very well that distinction belongs to another team 200 miles away – to the east. “We have a great venue that’s full on Saturdays and when we go on the road, we’re the home team’s biggest crowd of the year. And we’ve been at the top of the heap for a long time.

“We get everybody’s best shot. You need to embrace that as part of the culture here.”

Eastern regularly delivers that best shot. Which, for the time being, is the next-best thing.